March Patch Notes (formerly february)

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I like the diplomacy changes, minor as they are. I've been playing through again for the first time since september and the AI has actually been pretty reasonable in diplomacy (still pretty much a pushover tactically), the denounce chains are the only really obvious problem I've had (fighting a war now against a larger, more powerful enemy in a very complicated international situation and the denounce chain hit me so bad that even civs which liked me and were worried about them ended up denouncing me).
 
I have to say I am pretty amazed at some people here. The devs announce a huge patch dealing with many of the game's biggest issues and your first reaction is to just complain some more? Pull up your socks and quit whining.
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I'm assuming you mean there are non-algorithmic uses involved, since specific build orders are easy to program. I can't actually think of anything crazy here.

No, it has to do with how the AI's production bonuses work. A free early Settler or Worker means a lot to me; it doesn't mean a lot to the AI, because it can spit them out like mad anyway. Ditto a universal +2 Food (AI's tiny food boxes), a free Wonder (AI's tiny production boxes), and a sizable early Culture buff (AI's tiny production boxes and unlimited gold -> Culture building spam). Finally, the Culture buff means you can easily reverse the city tile :c5production: nerf with Republic. Acquiring most of those bonuses before the first expansion wave, and the remainder during the expansion wave due to the new Legalism is very possible. It's also desirable to do so, since many of those SPs are more desirable than anything other than Freedom.

As you noted, speeding up Babylon's ability to rip through the tech tree with a free GS isn't a great idea either. That and +1 Scientist/University is why I consider Babylon to be a candidate for the strongest post-patch civ. France is a candidate due to the faster SPs, although the potential for early Culture bonuses for all civs mitigates that somewhat. Free food and mad growth bonuses clearly strengthen India, and Siam will still have a strong early game due to increased Food/Culture and the ability to bypass Libraries. It's worth noting that all of those civs also have worthy UUs.

Persia is also substantially strengthened on Deity, since it will be possible to get Chichen Itza with the Meritocracy GE. I don't think that's sufficient to make them the best civ, but it's not out of the realm of possibility.

Let's not forget multiplayer. Since the best strategy is still to grab honour and chop rush the best early unique unit and go smash someone, you need to elevate other policies to compete.

While this is true, until they fix multiplayer's plethora of problems this seems a secondary concern. Even then I'm not sure it matters, since the only possible defense against a rush will still be a rush.
 
Wonder bonuses could use some cleaning up... +2 science for Old Faithful? You can at least give it some economy for tourism.

Krakatoa spawns in the middle of the ocean a lot. Is that intended?

With the bonuses to GP tile enhancements, maybe the Wonder Bonuses should be re-examined.

I agree. The natural wonders need a reworking. Or at least an option to turn them off at the start of the game. (sorry Spain!).

Krakatoa should spawn in the middle of the ocean, as it is an island . . .
 
I have to say I am pretty amazed at some people here. The devs announce a huge patch dealing with many of the game's biggest issues and your first reaction is to just complain some more? Pull up your socks and quit whining.

Totally agree, this patch is without a doubt a huge step in the right direction.
 
Representation

Cities (on standard) increase policy costs by 30%
33% less of that is 20%

I think that is a modifier for ALL policies

ie Normal
Multiply policy costs by 1+ 0.3* number of cities

Representation
Multiply policy costs by 1+ 0.3* number of cities*(1-.33)= 1+ 0.2*number of cities
 
I have to say I am pretty amazed at some people here. The devs announce a huge patch dealing with many of the game's biggest issues and your first reaction is to just complain some more? Pull up your socks and quit whining.

Except most of these posts are not whining at all. In fact this thread has had a very strong discussion of the goods and bads of this patch.
 
Acquiring most of those bonuses before the first expansion wave, and the remainder during the expansion wave due to the new Legalism is very possible. It's also desirable to do so, since many of those SPs are more desirable than anything other than Freedom.

Agreed. From a game play perspective these strong early branches are a lot more fun. I think these buffs were also partly motivated by the devs wanting to make the "waive all SP's until Renaissance" approach a thing of the past.
 
To bad they don't seem to do anything about the stability problems late game on huge maps in this patch so this patch will for me be as useless as the other patches.
 
Except most of these posts are not whining at all. In fact this thread has had a very strong discussion of the goods and bads of this patch.

No, I agree that most of the posts have been positive and focused on what these changes mean for gameplay and strategy. I just think it is jarring when some people's first reaction is, "Oh the game still sucks."
 
No, I agree that most of the posts have been positive and focused on what these changes mean for gameplay and strategy. I just think it is jarring when some people's first reaction is, "Oh the game still sucks."

There are still significant design flaws. A rework of Maritimes and Research Agreements and a nerf to Great Scientists are still very necessary. The game will also remain conflict-prone because there simply aren't enough opportunities for positive peaceful interaction, which makes the opportunity cost of war quite low. The patch is likely to exacerbate that problem, because opportunities for peaceful expansion will be exhausted much sooner due to increased minimum spacing between cities.

Those issues are probably what motivates some of the more negative posters. My biggest concern is that the devs still don't seem to recognize these flaws, based on this set of changes.
 
The tradition liberty thing is in the policies XML file. There is a special rule that stops the ai from using both

Kinda funny that they can't use those two. They should be stopped from taking mutually exclusive policies instead. I saw AI's go fascism route while having full liberty, which I imagine hurt them quite a bit. Same with piety and rationalism. :(

I just think it is jarring when some people's first reaction is, "Oh the game still sucks."

Because it's their opinion and they're entitled to it? Just ignore it if you don't like it... Telling people to stop whining never quite works you know. If anything you'll just make more people angry.
 
I actually had to register so I can comment this. Been reading the forum since Civ V came out and been excited about the game. Never really got hold of Civ IV even though I think it's marvelous game. When I talk about Civ 4 I mean with expansions as that's the only way I've played it. With all the features it was just too complicated for me and I struggled especially with the religions and espionages (and those are both gone in Civ V!). At first Civ V just seemed nicely straightlined, but I begun to need more depth. That's why I'll be trying Civ IV again now, along with Civ V. Many things that where mystery for me before in Civ IV makes sense after playing Civ V for dozens of hours. Nice to see how it feels now. Atleast I miss the more depth United Nations where you could vote for Nuke Ban, that was just so cool and realistic! I hope we'll see that in Civ V some day.

Enough for the backround (as no one propably cares :)). I red the list of improvements with smile. I think we can all see that Fireaxis hasn't stopped developing the game. With one or two expansions and Civ V will be great game if it's not already. I especially like the science slow down, as in my games I haven't got any use of nukes or GDR's, actually I've never even SEEN GDR, or nukes on someone else than me. I have built nukes but never really got use for them as the game was already over, won by me or someone else. The Aqueduct with modified Hospital sounds also very good. And all the dozens of small tweaks sound good too. This will be great patch!

Just hoping that Fireaxis will keep giving us these nice updates. There was mention about multiplayer improvements and ai tweaking and when looking these updates lists I feel confident that Civ V will be nicely updated in future also. We've got some serious updates already and I don't see that stopping in near future. Just hoping to see the promised Hot Seat which should've been there from the start. Keep up good work!
 
CiV can never become a complex, riveting experience like Civ IV BTS....

Put it down to being a bad mistake and just move on.

I'll bet (last shirt, car & house) anyone, it will.
Civ6 will possibly have its own shot at some "other" bad design choices eventually, wanna bet?
In the meantime, we'll take every bit of extra features Firaxis would care shoving down our throats... cuz, i paid them money for the stuff which was worth extra re-playability factors beyond whatever Civvy_Sixy_wishy title you'd want now or later.
Just play the now & then or - dream on.
 
Great with adding a turn limit on the declaration of friendship!
That one ruined a game for me, i agreed to friendship with the germans, but some 60 turns later i turns out i have to destroy them. And get hated by everyone! grrr!
So great to get that one out of the way...

Would have liked more AI improvements. But maybe in the next patch eh?

And OH FIX THE DAMN CIVILOPEDIA ALREADY!! It is a joke. 'A railroad is a road on rails', 'bonus vs tank.'.
 
I don't know whether I should be impressed or insulted.

A lot of these changes are good moves, but half of the ideas seem like they were ripped directly from current mods.....

who cares if an idea is good - and even better tested - I say put it in for everyone.
 
I blame the lack of commas (or not enough of commas) to be the biggest reason of misunderstandings such as this. You wouldn't really, if at all face such problems in Finnish or Russian texts. :D

Now, just expand this line of reasoning to a properly edited_updated multi-localized Civilopedia (online or otherwise) and you'll understand how incredibly tough it is to document such gameplay in a proper manner.
Gee, here in Québec... we're Bi-Lingual and there isn't much accentuated rational words that indirectly mean Anglos would always get our very first expressive "poetry_style" conversations tries without claiming -- duh!
Tricky punctuations included.
:lol:
 
I have to say I am pretty amazed at some people here. The devs announce a huge patch dealing with many of the game's biggest issues and your first reaction is to just complain some more? Pull up your socks and quit whining.

Well, it's like getting taken to the hospital because you've broken your leg. While you are there they treat the rash on your arm but don't do anything about your broken leg. When you exclaim, "What about my broken leg!" a bystander says, "Talk about ungrateful! They just treated your skin rash!"

I am glad they are attempting to fix the game. I think the very foundations of the game are bad though (1UPT, Global Happiness, horrible AI, etc.) and that's really what needs fixing. So in the end, the skin rash is getting treatment but the leg will remain broken.
 
No, I agree that most of the posts have been positive and focused on what these changes mean for gameplay and strategy. I just think it is jarring when some people's first reaction is, "Oh the game still sucks."

Some folks just aren't going to like CivV no matter what happens. What other folks think of the game doesn't hinder me from enjoying it. If they would rather play IV than V, that's their business anyway. We all paid our money and will take from the games what we want.
 
I have to say I am pretty amazed at some people here. The devs announce a huge patch dealing with many of the game's biggest issues and your first reaction is to just complain some more? Pull up your socks and quit whining.

Thank you for stating the obvious. Opinions count and everyone has a right to share their thoughts... although, it's simply extremely hard for anybody to fully grasp the entire scope of such an extensive patch, once more. The impacts are even greater on many Mods.
I'll judge it (in its global sense) when it's on my PC and only after having clocked numerous gaming situations; some people think, not to sound harsh or silly... ahem -- somehow :cough: ahead :cough: of themselves.
You heard it here first. ;)

The only last question remains (in my case)... what am i gonna do with my free GP(by choice!) at Meritocracy?
 
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